Antonietta Gallone Galassi: A life between science and cultural heritage

Born in 1928, Antonietta Gallone graduated in 1951 with a degree in physics from the faculty of science at the University of Milan. She carried out her initial research activities at the Polytechnic University of Milan, in one of the world's first laser laboratories, later dealing with positron spectroscopy with Professor Alfredo Dupasquier. At the Polytechnic she then held the role of researcher, referring to the Institute of Physics but also collaborating with various bodies and research centers, including the Gino Bozza Institute. Beginning in 1976 she dedicated herself to the applications of "physical-chemical" techniques to the field of conservation.
After the Second World War Antonietta Gallone was among the first women who ventured into the field of "diagnostics" on cultural heritage, to use a term borrowed from medicine. It is worth remembering that Raffaella Rossi Manaresi (Bologna, 1924-2011) was the first Italian woman to dedicate herself to applications of science to the study and conservation of cultural heritage, a sector that for years had been a male domain. Approximately the same age as Gallone, but with a degree in chemistry, she made her debut toward the end of the 1960s with studies on stone materials. She worked for the Superintendence of Fine Arts of Bologna, where Cesare Gnudi and Andrea Emiliani had managed to establish a scientific laboratory for the conservation of works of art.
Meanwhile, Antonietta Gallone's professional itinerary along the lines of cultural heritage was encouraged by Franco Russoli (1923-1977), creator of the "Grande Brera" and Superintendent of Monuments and Galleries of Lombardy at the time, and by his successor, Stella Matalon, with whom Antonietta formed a friendly relationship, promoting rich intellectual exchanges. Russoli was the first to ask her to carry out investigations on some Brera paintings that were being restored, making use of the cutting-edge techniques available in the Polytechnic laboratories, following the example of what was being carried out in French museum laboratories, which the historian had been able to visit thanks to his relationships with ICOM (the International Council of Museums).
Beginning already in the 1930s, historians' interest was extending to investigations with increasingly advanced analytical techniques, allowing researchers to identify pigments, binders, materials, and techniques used by artists or in past restorations. This contributed, on the one hand, to transforming the discipline of restoration from a mere renovative intervention into a conservational restoration, that is, an action of preserving the cultural asset while also monitoring its degradation processes; and on the other, it became an aid in the process of authenticating works, despite the fact that many warned against excessive trust in scientific methods at the expense of historical-critical analysis. Ahead of her time and going against the trend of many of her colleagues, Antonietta defined her almost absolute confidence in always obtaining results of certainty that were capable of explaining everything, as "a residue of positivism."
Throughout her scientific career, Antonietta Gallone stood out for her familiarity with the history of art and techniques. She furthermore supported with conviction the need for laboratory analysts and technicians to be trained, not only in the science of materials, but also in artistic techniques, enthusiastically promoting dialogue among historians, restorers, and scientific experts, and thus inciting multidisciplinary approaches. With her pioneering approach, she contributed to establishing the professional profile of the conservation scientist.
Gallone primarily carried out micro-destructive analyses based on taking microscopic samples from artistic artefacts. Among the techniques she adopted, we can mention: stratigraphic studies with optical and electronic microscopy (SEM), capable of providing data on the morphology of the sample and on the constituent pictorial and material layers; some imaging techniques, at the time cutting-edge, such as reflectography, capable, for example, of revealing the presence of preparatory drawings, pentimenti, or restorations to the work, without causing damage; as well as compositional investigations, making it possible to obtain data on the chemical composition of materials at an elemental or molecular level: microchemical tests (MCA); spectrometric analyses through energy dispersion (SEM-EDS) or X-ray diffraction (XRD); color tests (ST); etc.
In the early 1980s, with Giovanni Bottiroli (CNR Pavia), she made an important contribution to the analytical methods of the time, developing a technique for the identification of traditional binders within the layers of the sample: UV microspectrofluorimetry. This technique is implemented through observation of the fluorescent spectra induced by UV rays on samples previously embedded in resin.
Over the course of her career, she collaborated with various museum institutions and public and private bodies. Among the great restorations to which her investigations contributed, we can recall that of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, which saw her collaborating, from the early 1980s until 1999, alongside the restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon (1925-2020).
Her long activity has resulted in an archive composed of several hundred technical reports describing morphological and compositional investigations conducted on samples taken from the works of major painters such as Leonardo, Giotto, Raphael, Mantegna, and Tintoretto, as well as from elements of architectural heritage, from sculptural and mosaic works, textile threads, and archaeological finds. This enormous quantity of data has played a significant role in understanding artistic techniques and has been widely used toward the restoration of many of the cornerstones of Italian artistic heritage.
In the archive named in her honor at the Polytechnic of Milan, several thousand micro-samples have been carefully preserved by the scholar to guarantee their availability, in the future, for the possibility of further research with more accurate instruments.

"The Renaissance masters seem closer to us, since we began scrutinizing under the microscope the material of their color and the way they painted."